Author
Topic: OzHadou.net and forum updates (Read 7851 times)

We're slowly chipping away at some new features for the forum which tie-in with the yet-to-be-released front page.

This will be a place where we let you know of new features as they roll into place. I'll update this post as new stuff becomes available.

18th April, 2012:

- Added front page comment system driven by Disqus (testing)

7th July:

- Event Registration

Forum members now have the ability to register for events added to the calendar. This is particularly handy for organisers to acertain a list of attendants and also get a list of player names and so on.

When mods and event organisers create a new calendar entry or link an announcement to the calendar, a bunch of registration fields become available. This includes registration duration, cut off date, registration agreement message, etc.

For users, when you visit a post or calendared event, a "Register" button appears at the top. Clicking this effectively 'registers' your interest in the event allowing organisers to generate player lists and gauge how many mashers they can expect.

Please give this option a try as I expect it'll make event organisation a little less painful. If you encounter any problems, please let me know.

6th July:

- Live updates to private messages and posts

As you receive new PMs and replies to your posts and topics, a little ajax applet will appear in the upper right corner of the site that allows quick access to the new messages and posts. This is a live feed connected to your account, so you can see messages and posts directed at you personally. To see this in action, ask someone to send you a PM (or reply/quote your posts).

- Calendar for community events

You will notice the 'Calendar' link in the nav bar towards the top of the forum next to 'My Messages.' Clicking on this will take you to the OzHadou calendar, which gives a run-down of events and goings on within the community. Clicking on a calendar event will take you to the post detailing the event where discussion (and eventually event registration) will be available. The link for the calendar is: http://forum.ozhadou.net/index.php?action=calendar

Forum moderators and event organisers have the permission to add posts to the calendar. You have two options here:

1.) At the bottom of posts, click 'Link to Calendar' - this will then present you with options for publishing the event to the calendar, including start date, duration and a description. The linked post is then made accessible via the calendar day so visitors can then go to the post to get details and view the discussion surrounding the event.

The new front page has a section that is automatically populated with upcoming events for the current month so at a glance you will be able to see what is going on within the community. Clicking these events on the front page will then take you the the threads detailing them with associated discussion. The new front page we hope to have ready soon. Mods - please note that only posts in the 'Tournament Announcements' and 'Casual Event Announcements' should be linked for the sake of consistency. If your permissions are lacking here, please let me know.

2.) If you are a mod or an event organiser, when you visit the calendar you can click on a day and you will then be presented with a form to fill out your event details which will automatically create both a post and a calendar event for your event.

So what goes in the calendar and what posts get flagged as calendar linked events? Pretty much anything that you feel involves the community in your respective areas. Tournaments, meets, gatherings, etc. Things that you feel the community should know about that involves getting together or involving others. Examples being Shadowloo Showdown, OHN, Boxhill, 99York, Couchwarriors, etc. Another good example might be active streams you fire up ('sup Bugs!) and so on.

I only ask that we try to maintain some presentation consistency. So prefix your events with [MELB] or [SYD] or [QLD] etc. Everyone seems to do this anyway, so lets keep that ball rolling.

I have also added an "Upcoming Events" section in the forum info center which appears at the bottom of all the available sub-forum lists.

More stuff soon. If you encounter any issues with these features, please PM me or post in this thread. If you have any feature suggestions by all means sing out.

- New profile fields

Added profile fields for Steam and Games for Windows to accommodate details for those playing SSFIV AE on PC. To add these details, click 'Profile > Forum profile' and add your details in the fields displayed.

I've put together a rough implementation of a commenting system for the front page's articles. (Please excuse the sketchy CSS for now, as the replacement front page is still a work in progress and yet to be formally released.) Though for now this ought to do the trick.

The comment system uses Disqus rather than the stock Wordpress comments due to some historical back-end incompatibilities. The bonus is that it allows you to authenticate and leave comments via a number of popular social systems you're likely already a member of, such as Facebook, OpenID, Google+, Twitter and Yahoo!

Please give this a shot if you're inclined to check out the front page from time to time. As always, please let me know if anything breaks or doesn't work as expected.

If you feel a post is offensive or disrupts the general tone of the place, feel free to click the 'Report to Moderator' link in the footer of posts.

Please don't abuse this feature and use common sense when giving it a mash. This link is also throttled so you can't go hogwild and report every bozo in a thread. Note that using this feature doesn't translate to an automatic ban/post delete/public flaying - its simply a notifier for the moderators that finds itself in a bucket for review.

Once you ignore users, their forum avatar and details are removed and the content of their posts appears as 'You are ignoring this user. Show me the post.'

'Show me the post' is a selectable link that displays their comment should you wish to see it anyway. Next to this is an 'unignore' option which allows you to remove them from your shit list should you decide to become best buddies again.